


we will grow old as friends

by gingermaggie



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Unseen Reboot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 00:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17254607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingermaggie/pseuds/gingermaggie
Summary: Eleanor has a soulmate. He isn'thersoulmate, of course. But it still seems like she should like him more than she likes, say, Chidi.Not that shelikesChidi. They're just friends. Obviously.





	we will grow old as friends

**Author's Note:**

> for tumblr user @enragedbees for the @tgpsecretsanta exchange!
> 
> \---
> 
> title from "sick of losing soulmates" by dodie

**Reboot** **#** **673**

The entire concept of soulmates is weird.

Like, what are the odds that there’s one person in the entire freaking universe that’s—what? Destined to be your perfect match? To fill in all your missing pieces? To love you automatically? To stand by you no matter what? Eleanor finds that incredibly unlikely. 

Of course, she also finds it unlikely that she actually belongs in an afterlife literally called the Good Place. So maybe soulmates are an odd choice to nitpick, when her entire existence is a little bit incomprehensible. 

She's been dead—gosh, it's still weird to even think that, she's  _dead_ —for a couple weeks before she really gets a chance to really think about soulmates.  Too busy hiding her dark past and discovering Jason's identity and meeting Chidi and starting ethics lessons and getting caught by Tahani and—anyway, her “soulmate,” apparently, is a guy named Mark.

Mark is…well, he’s kind of everything Eleanor would have expected in her soulmate. If, you know, she was a thirteen year old girl who believed in sparkles and fairytales and liked cookies and puppies and the concept of the Disney Channel. Mark is tall, with thick, curly hair, bright eyes, and a quick, flirty smile. He was a doctor when he was alive, a  _pediatric surgeon_ , no less. A full on do-gooder who saved kids' lives as a day job and volunteered to clean oceans and walk helpless puppies or something in his spare time. He died saving hundreds of people's lives during some natural disaster, to top it off, and left all his money to charity. A little excessive, if you ask Eleanor, but still undeniably the Good Place's most eligible bachelor.

“So why doesn’t it feel  _right_?” Eleanor huffs, slumping low into a beanbag in Jason's unfortunately named Budhole. He’s not really listening to her as far as she can tell, utterly focused on his football video game whatever. 

Tahani tisks, not entirely unkindly, but it's kinda necessarily harsh when she says, “Well, darling, he's likely  _not_ your soulmate. Just like Jason"—here her expression twists—"most certainly is not  _mine_. You don’t belong here, so why would your soulmate be here?”

“Okay, fair,” Eleanor says. “Rude, but fair. Even so, though, he  _seems_  like he should be my soulmate. We like the same things, we have the same sense of humor, we’re compatible levels of attractive, and yet— _nothing._ ”

“It’s probably because you’re in love with Chidi,” Jason offers nonchalantly, not even taking his eyes off the screen, leaning into some kind of move he’s making in the game. 

“ _What?_ ” Eleanor and Tahani demand at the same time, but Jason doesn’t seem bothered by their response. 

“What the fork are you talking about?” Eleanor manages to say. “I’m not in—I mean, that’s ridic—I mean, why would you say that?” 

Jason shrugs. “I dunno. You guys spend a bunch of time together, and you’re always talking about him, like,  _Chidi said not to double dip_ and  _I wonder what Chidi is doing today_ and  _Chidi is really ripped_ and— _"_

“Okay, I get it!” Eleanor snaps. 

Tahani tilts her head, studying Eleanor thoughtfully. “He may have a point, Eleanor,” she says, in that all-too-reasonable, lilting voice she has. “Chidi is certainly handsome, and smart, and kind, and you  _do_  seem to get along quite well, despite your...considerable differences.”

“No way,” she says firmly. “I am totally not in love with—”

A brisk knock at the door interrupts her protest, and when the door swings open, there he is.

“Chidi,” Eleanor concludes, a little breathless, feeling heat rush up her neck.

“Hi,” he says, completely oblivious as ever. “Are you guys—are we doing class today? I’ve been waiting over at your house, Eleanor, and then Mark came home and didn’t know where you were, and Janet said you were—” 

Eleanor cuts him off. “Watching Jason play FIFA, yeah. Super fun. Awesome pastime. You know how it is.” She barely resists the urge to do a peace sign. Why would she do a peace sign? _Cool it, Eleanor._

“Nuh-uh!” Jason objects, apparently finding this and only this worth looking away from his game for. “It’s  _Madden_ , Eleanor. FIFA is soccer. Soccer is the  _worst_ ,” he adds, his voice tilting towards a whine. “One time, in Jacksonville, me and Donkey Doug stole a case of soccer balls to use in a dance routine, and—”

“That’s fascinating, buddy, really, but it sounds like we’re late for class,” Eleanor interjects. “So we better get going.”

“Unless you guys need a break today,” Chidi offers, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s okay if we skip a day. Rachel and I were talking about doing some kind of picnic date on the lake, I could see if she—”

Eleanor doesn’t let him finish. “No, no, let’s do it. Ethics! My brain is horny for learning,” she adds, maybe a little overenthusiastically. 

Chidi smiles a sweet, amused smile, and the sight of it makes her own smile soften a bit. Until she catches Tahani’s knowing glance over Chidi’s shoulder, like Eleanor’s proving Jason right. Just by being  _friendly_  to her  _friend_. 

 _Those guys don’t know what they’re talking about,_ she thinks, firmly.  _Totally off base_.

\---

Time goes on. Weird shirt happens pretty much on the daily. Tahani gets increasingly competitive in her attempts to plan parties as good as Gunnar’s, and Jason ends up spending a whole week walking around with a blindfold on to avoid setting off Michael’s suspicions, and Chidi agonizes over hiding Eleanor and Jason's secrets from his soulmate, and Eleanor is pretty much convinced Michael or Mark or  _somebody_ is going to call her out as an imposter at any given moment. 

But they don’t.

Michael continues to be cheerful, and a little distant, and endearing, if a little irritating. Mark continues to be all too perfect and chafingly agreeable and almost  _actively_ relatable. In fact, after a few months of living with him, Eleanor finds herself slipping away to Chidi’s house more and more, just to escape the pressure of being around someone so like herself and yet so far above her in goodness. That’s the hardest thing to deal with with Mark—he really  _is_  like her. He’s the only person besides herself and Jason whom the swear filter ever really needs to work on. He’s willing to talk at least a little bit of shirt about some of the other residents at parties. He has a near-pathological obsession with shrimp, is always willing to throw back shots, and good-naturedly complains about how freaky her clown pictures are at least once a week. 

He really feels like he’s supposed to be  _her_  soulmate. Not the soulmate of the selfless do-gooder clown-loving flannel-wearing lawyer they think she is, but the fairly overqualified soulmate of the Arizona dirtbag with a maybe-heart-of-gold. 

And still she feels nothing for him. 

When she’s lying in bed at night, Jason’s words rattle around in her brain, keeping her awake.

She’s not in love with Chidi.

She’s not. 

Chidi has a soulmate. One he’s actually meant to be with. Rachel. Rachel, who’s as smart as he is, and likes philosophy, and likes—talking about philosophy, and French poetry, and helping people, and whatever it is real Good Place people talk about together when Eleanor isn’t around. They’re happy together. She thinks.

She doesn’t think about the way Chidi’s voice sometimes seems off when he talks about Rachel, or how Eleanor, despite her close friendship with Chidi, has never really interacted with her. How Chidi probably spends more of his typical day hanging out with Eleanor, whether they‘re having class or not, than he does with Rachel. She doesn’t think about the time Chidi confided he thought Rachel might find him boring, or the time he was tired and Eleanor was laughing at something he’d said and he’d confessed, so softly, that he’d never heard Rachel’s laugh.  

She doesn’t think about the way Chidi hugs her, with his whole body, his whole  _soul_ , like she’s the only thing in the universe to him in that moment. She doesn’t think about the way she’s watched him blossom into a brighter person since they met, a more confident person, a more decisive person. A happier person. She doesn’t wonder if Rachel is to thank for that. Or if she is. 

When she can help it, she doesn’t think about Chidi at all. Except as a friend. Her friend. Her best friend. 

Not her soulmate.

It’s like Tahani said. She probably doesn’t even have a soulmate. This isn’t her Good Place. He isn’t her soulmate. 

Mark, that is. Not Chidi. Of course Chidi’s not her soulmate.

Definitely not.

\---

Eleanor isn’t really sure how it happens. Like so many other things since she died, it kind of defies logic. 

Chidi kisses her. 

Or, well, there’s more to it than that, but that’s where it ends up. 

They’re hanging out in her creepy little clown house, and it’s always nice to have Chidi there. He makes it feel homier, in a way Jason and Tahani and even Mark don’t. Sometimes she feels like  _Chidi_ is the one who lives there with her, or that he should be, or that he used to be. But when she tries to follow that train of thought, she gets a headache, so she tries not to think about it. 

Mark is off wherever it is he goes when he leaves—and she feels bad, a little, that she doesn’t actually know where that might be. Maybe she should have asked, at some point in the last five months? But then again, he’s never offered the information, and he’s never asked any questions that might lead to her having to talk around Chidi’s ethics lessons. They’re not gonna win any best-communicating-couple awards, Eleanor guesses, but the silence works out for her, so she can’t really complain.

Bad as it may sound, it’s a nice relief to have a break from trying to be Perfect(ish) Eleanor, to just relax with Chidi after Tahani and Jason leave and maybe call Janet for some snacks and movies. But then she catches sight of Chidi.

He’d seemed fine during the lecture, but once it’s just the two of them it’s like some outward-facing mask slowly begins to slip away, and he just looks...tired. He slumps against her headboard and closes his eyes on a sigh. 

Maybe once upon a time Eleanor would have pretended not to notice, pushed for the afternoon to stay normal and carefree, but this version of Eleanor loves Chidi—as a  _friend_ , okay, just as a  _friend_ —and she’s not going to let this slide. “What’s wrong, dude?”

“Nothing,” he says, kneejerk, and Eleanor lets out a snort. 

“Try again. Is it class? Do we need to take another hiatus? I know I was an ashhole about it last time, but I do understand that you have needs outside of helping me and Jason, and I respect—”

Chidi shakes his head. “No,” he says. “No, it’s not that.”

Eleanor presses on. “Was the shrimp bad? Is it food poisoning? Can you get food poisoning in the Good Place? I don’t—” 

“No,” he says, firmer this time. “I—It’s Rachel,” he says, apparently realizing Eleanor will just keep listing things and it’ll be quicker to just cut to the chase. “I think we might be fighting,” he admits. “Does it count as fighting if you’re not talking? She doesn’t even seem angry,” he adds. “Just...uninterested in me.”

Eleanor feels her face forming into a scowl, immediate, fierce. “Well, fork her,” she says, savagely. “You’re the most interesting person I know. You’re infuriating, don’t get me wrong, and dude, you’ve  _got_  to work on your self-esteem, and you’ve still got some room for improvement in the decision-making department, but—” she chokes to a halt, flushing with self-consciousness as her brain catches up to her mouth. “You’re awesome, dude, okay? Trust me. I’m not easy to impress.”

“I thought the Good Place would be...easier,” Chidi says, and he still sounds so  _sad_. “Perfect, you know? Or at least. Good. But it’s like the longer we’re here the harder it gets.”

“That’s what she said,” Eleanor says without thinking. Then, “Fork. Sorry. Not the moment.”

But Chidi is grinning, eyes brightening right before her gaze. “You are absurd, Eleanor Shellstrop,” he says.

And then he kisses her. 

She freezes at first, sure she must be having a stroke or something, whatever kind of phenomenon would make her hallucinate such an insane occurrence. Because no way would Chidi—

Chidi is  _kissing her_. 

She kisses him back, desperate, delighted, and he pulls her close against him, and she thinks she could stay in this moment for a million lifetimes. 

She isn’t sure how long they kiss. She isn’t thinking about the time, or the place, or Mark or Rachel, or Jason or Tahani or Janet or Michael, or the fact that she doesn’t belong, or anything other than Chidi. Her and Chidi. 

Finally, they have to pull back for air—which is pretty lame, Eleanor thinks, what’s the point of heaven if you have to stop kissing for air—and he’s looking at her like she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. 

“Eleanor,” he says. “I think I—that is—I'm pretty sure—” he stops, swallows hard. “Eleanor,” he says, and his voice is as sure as she’s ever heard it. “I love you.”

Warmth bubbles up in her chest, and for a moment she’s so filled with joy she doesn’t even know what to do with it. She’s pretty sure she’s never been this happy, not in life or death, and yet at the same time this moment feels familiar, like she’s been here before, swimming in contentment and security and love and the incredulous sensation of Chidi’s lips on hers and those words in the air.

“Chidi,” she says against his neck, reveling in the feeling of his hands pressed warm against her back. The words bubble out of her from the dark corners of her mind, where they’ve been festering almost unnoticed for so long, waiting to ruin this one perfect moment. “I think that we’re in the Bad Place.”

**Author's Note:**

> it's so weird to write this and know all the things michael and the demons are doing bts that eleanor doesn't know about. i kept wanting to explain things going on that eleanor didn't know but...she didn't know. so i couldn't.
> 
> anyway, i hope you enjoyed!!!
> 
> i'm on tumblr [@romansuzume](http://romansuzume.tumblr.com) / twitter [@gingermaggiest](http://twitter.com/gingermaggiest) / pillowfort [@maggie](http://pillowfort.io/maggie), come say hi/gush/talk about tgp!!!


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